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BioMed Central

For 15 years, we have been making scientific research freely accessible and discoverable through partnerships, innovation and collaboration with the scientific community. Dedicated to open research, we now publish over 290 quality peer-reviewed journals in Biology, Clinical Medicine and Health.

Editors' picks

Pets can help people manage their long-term mental health conditions. Owners felt their pets helped by distracting them from symptoms and upsetting experiences such as hearing voices or suicidal thoughts.

Assessments help educators make decisions about learners. Assessment validation evaluates the appropriateness of such decisions. This article describes a contemporary, pragmatic approach to assessment validation.

Advances in Simulation 2016

Retrospectively registered trials

Prospective clinical trial registration aims to address publication and reporting bias. Unfortunately, not all clinical trials are registered before they start. Here we discuss the dilemma faced by editors when receiving submissions reporting a clinical trial that was not registered prospectively, and a new policy for increasing transparency when a trial was registered after participant recruitment has begun.

Citizen science: through the looking glass

In this blog, Poppy Lakeman Fraser, Senior Programme Coordinator for the Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) initiative, explains what citizen science actually is and how researchers rely on this form of data collection.